Part 17 of 25 World Cuisines to try. (2/5) Today’s Cuisine: #NewZealand Since #Dubpies specializes in savory pies, I couldn’t resist taking a second helping, this time a traditional #shepherdspie with minced beef and #mashedpotato filling, also known as #cottagepie. The ratio steered higher towards the potato, but the combination was excellent nonetheless. The #meatpie is such a part of the New Zealand national identity that the amount of pies consumed by the populace was an average of 15 pies per person in a year (4 million citizens, equaling 60 million pies a year), beating out Australia’s average of 12 meat pies per person. These pies are also inextricably linked with #Rugby and are the most consumed food items during games, much like hot dogs are consumed at baseball games and other sports events in the US (the average hotdog consumption per person in a year in the US is 60 hotdogs). As popular as meat pies are in New Zealand and Australia, #SteakMincePie and Shepherd’s Pie had their origins from England and as a result of colonization became the popular dish they are in the Oceanic countries. #FunFact: The origin of pies goes back as far as 9500BC when the Egyptians made basic pies built from oat, wheat, rye, and barley, and filled with honey and baked over hot coals. The Greeks in their ever-enlightened culinary wisdom took this structural idea and developed their own water-flour based crust more closely resembling modern piecrusts and filled it with meat at their first chance. The Romans expanded on the Greek model only slightly by incorporating more varieties of meats and seafood into the pies and by virtue of their sizable empire spread the pastry dish throughout Europe. Pies only received their name in Medieval Europe when the staple meat most consumed in pies at the time was the #Magpie bird. The dish was called ‘pie’ for short and it’s first use of the word was referenced in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1303. #pacificrimcuisine #foodie #nomnomnom #nom #NYC #windsorterrace #Brooklyn #ProspectPark (at Dub Meat Pies)